AP SPANISH LANGUAGE
SYLLABUS
COURSE OVERVIEW
The AP Spanish language course will be conducted in Spanish. Students will be encouraged throughout the course to practice the target language consistently with their peers, with their teacher and through an online language exchange program called Lenguajero. They will use the Spanish language to have casual conversations with their classmates and also have formal discussions in class.
The students will broaden their understanding of the Spanish language through conversations, newspaper, magazine, internet articles and short stories. They will be able to express themselves orally and in writing by convincing, arguing , inquiring and describing in a variety of styles, and use different strategies for different audiences.
The students will make connections between their learning in the classroom and in other classes, as well as in the global community. They will increase their knowledge of the Spanish-speaking world through their studies.
The ultimate goal is to communicate in a meaningful and appropriate way in the target language.
COURSE OUTLINE
Our school will use Espanñol En Vivo ,Triángulo (quinta edición),Nuevas Vistas Uno, Album, Repaso, and AP Practice (Prentice Hall) in the program. Repaso provides the students with a thorough grammar review and practice. Brief explanations will be offered when necessary. The students will work on these activities at home. The tests that accompany each chapter will be given as take-home assessments. A strong command of grammar is essential for communication, but class time will be used mostly for interactions of peers and for use of authentic materials. Triángulo will provide the students with great vocabulary building and a wide selection of materials from authentic sources. These are presented in the same format as the AP exam and will enhance the students’ practice. The essays provided in this text will help students to prepare for the exam also. During the first part of the course, the teacher will edit students’ work and in the second half of the course the studens will peer-edit each others’ work, make revisions and submit the final essay for a grade based upon the AP Scoring Guidelines. The multiple choice listening and reading comprehension sections will also be used as well as other free-response sample prompts. The use of Triángulo will allow for increased interaction in the classroom, will encourage language building, usage and practice with similar items found on the AP Spanish Language Exam. The AP Practice book from Prentice Hall will be used during the second half of the course as this material has increasingly difficult readings.
The short stories in the Album provide the students with authors from many different Spanish-speaking countries. The cd program has native speakers from the different countries who read segments of the stories. This will demonstrate differences in pronunciation. This text also has an online component for students to acquire additional information on each author, his/her works and country or region. There is an electronic flashcard program where students will practice thematically related vocabulary, literary terms and cinematographic expressions. Español En Vivo exposes students to real language use by native speakers to show the richness and variation that is found within the Spanish language. The book /dvd show students samples of national, regional and sociologically based varieties of Spanish from twenty three Spanish speakers from seven countries. Through personal accounts students are exposed to topics such as housing and family, the immigrant experience, and cultural traditions. It is shown in interview format.
For the semester exam, a shorter, mock AP Spanish Language Exam will be given using multiple-choice items from past released exams and free response questions created by the teacher that are similar in type and difficulty to those found on the AP exam. An oral presentation on free response speaking will also be a part of the semester exam. For example: you meet a friend at a local café after classes to discuss plans for college next year…
Students will also write answers to essay questions about pieces of literature that they have read during the semester-for example: Pepita Jimenez will be read outside of class, and discussions will take place in class. Lazarillo de Tormes will be studied during the second semester.
If the students meet the school criteria for exam exemptions, they will not be required to take a final exam in June; however, they will be given practice AP exams to prepare before taking the AP exam in May. All students who take Spanish AP are required to take the AP exam.
At the end of the first semester students will be asked to create a mini lesson on their chosen Hispanic country to present to level 2 and level 3 Spanish classes. They may choose to tell a legend, or create a story about the chosen country. They will be required to prepare a 10 slide powerpoint/prezzi of information in the target language.
Also, towards the end of the second semester, they will be asked to write an original children’s story to present to the other Spanish classes. In this manner they will be able to practice both writing and speaking skills.
FIRST SEMESTER
UNIT CHAPTERS FROM CHAPTERS FROM
REPASO TRIANGULO
1. 1,2,3,7,9,10 1. EL HOGAR:
El verbo (presente de indicativo, aparatos, comida,
ser, estar,gerundio, voz pasiva herramientas, muebles,
reflexivos quehaceres, ropa
______
2. 4, 5,8 ll. LA SALUD:
Los tiempos del pasado (presente accidentes, cuerpo
perfecto, pretérito, imperfecto emergencias,
pluscuamperfecto, medecina, medicos
3. 6 lll. EL MEDIO AMBIENTE:
Los tiempos del futuro al aire libre, animales,
y el condicional tiempo, topografía
4. 11,12,13,14 lV. EL TURISMO:
el subjuntivo aeropuerto, caminos,
los mandatos culturas extranjeras,
medios de transporte
______5. 16 V. EL OCIO:
Los substantivos y arte, ciencia ficción,
los artículos espectáculos, fiestas, música
sueños, teléfono, television
SECOND SEMESTER
UNIT CHAPTERS FROM CHAPTERS FROM
REPASO TRIANGULO
6 19 Vl. EL DEPORTE:
Los pronombres actividades, ejercicio
equipo, lugares
7. 18, 23 Vll. LA EDUCACION
Los posesivos, actividades, estudios,
los demostrativos, muebles, personas
las palabras interrogativas
y exclamativas
______8. 20, 24 Vlll. EL COMERCIO:
Los pronombres relativos finanazs, profesiones
Los indefinidos y los negativos tiendas, trabajos
9. 17, 21 lX. EL PROJIMO:
Los adjetivos, los adverbios características físicas
Los comparativos y los emociones, familia
superlativos personalidad
10. 15, 22 X. DE TODO UN POCO:
Las preposiciones y avances tecnológicos
las conjunciones derecho, policía, política,
infinitivos el futuro
Nuevas Vistas Uno : Cápitulos that enhance activities from Triángulo:
Leyendas is used with El Ocio
Habla Con Animales ---El Medio Ambiente
La Juventud—El Projimo ( from the Español en Vivo, units on La Familia, el Trabajo y la Rutina y la Education will be included )
SAMPLE CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
At the beginning of the year students listen to thematic songs from Andrea Boccelli, Josh Groban, Il Divo, Shakira, David de Maria , José Felliciano and Alejandro Sanz. They are given a copy of the lyrics with missing words. They listen to the songs twice, and during the second time they are asked to fill in the missing words. Later, they will be asked to listen to the music and list verbs. After, they will be asked to name tenses used, and why do they think the artists’ chose the vocabulary used. This may be in the form of a short discussion or journal entry.
Students will watch the daily four minute news program called Telediario from a Spanish news program. After watching the program, students will write a short summary of the information acquired and this information will be shared with their classmates. This will be included in their daily journal .At the end of the week, students will be asked to become the news reporter and share with others in class. They will also be asked to watch news programs from the BBC mundo website, or another of their choice at least once a week outside of class and write a short summary on a Google blog that will be available to the students.
Students will also watch segments from Bablingua (short programs on life in Spain purchased by teacher) and listen to podcasts from Voices en Español on cultural events. They will be asked to summarize information learned and complete listening and reading comprehension activities. Nearer the end of the first quarter, they will be asked to compare and contrast information learned. For example: on Voices en Español there are three podcasts on differences in pronunciation in three regions of Spain. Students will be asked to discuss regional differences/similarities.
Students will also listen to the Español En Vivo program and answer questions on the comparison/contrasting cultures of Spain, South America and Mexico. This program is done in an interview format. There are discussions on architecture, family, education, etc. The questions from the text are prepared at home and then discussed with peers after watching the segments. There are open ended questions which require students to research information before returning to class for discussions. When needed, the segments will be shown several times. After several segments have been shown, the students will be asked to draw comparisons among the speakers’ experiences, cultural background, pronunciation and general use of the language. They will also be asked to summarize the segments in a short paragraph and return to class to share their summaries in a short oral presentation. Classmates will be asked to add any other pertinent information, and to ask questions about each others’ summaries. The students will also play the role of the interviewer and ask a few additional questions. This will prepare them for their interview of a Native Spanish speaker (during El Projimo unit)
The students will be given an opportunity to join the Lenguajero online exchange program with people from around the world. This will allow them to practice their language skills through a skype type program. People from Mexico, Spain and Colombia are only a few examples of countries offered for practice.
The goal of the above activities is to listen for controlled information, take notes to help with remembering pertinent information and then to share the overall important details with their classmates and with the teacher.
Later, students will apply these strategies individually when using the audio sources for both the formal speaking section and the essay on their AP Exam.
Sources for authentic listening activities:
Telediarios Rtve.esp
Bablingua Bablingua.com (purchased programs)
BBC www.bbcmundo.com
CNN en español www.cnn.com/español/
Español En Vivo DVD program Yale University Press
You Tube www.youtube.com
Nuevas Vistas Uno -listening program /ancillaries
Lenguajero www.lenguajero.com/language exchange
BBC Mundo www.bbcmundo.com
This class will read and discuss the novels Pepita Jiménez and El Libro de Sigüenza during the first semester. The reading of the novels will be completed during the course. In class, as well as at home, students will also read short stories from the reader Album, Cuentos del Mundo Hispanico, Heinle 2005. There is a cd program to accompany the texts and students will have the opportunity to listen to people from around the Hispanic world. Students will begin to develop a familiarity with literary analysis vocabulary, compare and contrast themes and write critically about literature. They will learn more advanced vocabulary and discuss themes found in the texts and write essays comparing works of the authors studied.
Students will analyze the texts by identifying two or three main concrete details, then paraphrase in writing, in their own words, these details. They will summarize these orally in small groups to compare with other students, and help each other assess their comprehension of the texts. This will help improve their preparation for the essays that will be written every three weeks.
Up to date articles from the People En Español magazine and from EL Pais are offered to the students to use as resources, as well as the articles from CNN en español , from BBC Mundo and from Rtve.esp. They will be asked to write short summaries on the news articles and present these summaries to the class.
Lesson Sample:
Unit: Las Familias y las Comunidades
Context: La Estructura de la Famila y Las Tradiciones y los Valores
Essential Questions: ¿ Cómo se desfine la familia en distintas sociedades?
. ¿Cuáles son las diferencias en los papeles que asumen las communidades y las familias en las diferentes sociedades del mundo?
· Students create a vocabulario list from chapters in these three texts : Triangulo (El Projimo ) and Nuevas Vistas (La Juventud) and Español En Vivo( La familia ) . This will be used in their daily journals.
· Students will interview a native speaker, and answer the following, as well as add several questions that they will create based on the theme of the family.
· What constitutes a family in different societies? How do the roles that families and communities assume differ in societies around the world? What is the notion of an extended family?
· ¿Qué hacen para mantener vivas sus raíces y su lengua. ¿Qué es lo más difícil de ser hispanohablante en una sociedad angloparlante? ¿Cómo definan los individuos y las sociedades su propia calidad de vida?
Students would then discuss in the online blog family rules, family relationships. They could compare and contrast their life with the life of the native speaker interviewed. They may also be asked to discuss the meaning of the extended family for Hispanics. They will compare this to their own family. How is their family a reflection of their identity?
The students will return to class and do a short oral presentation of their interview. These may be recorded on our Audacity program.
As a continuation to the study of La Vida Contemporánea (Education, Careers, Travel, Leisure and Lifestyles), these essential questions will be addressed: How is Contemporary Life influenced by cultural products, practices and perspectives? What are the Challenges of Contemporary Life?
The following activity will be assigned: Students will find a Spanish language article from an online magazine, newspaper or blog that identifies a challenge they face in their own life. This must be a topic of interest to them and a challenge they will be faced with, or one that they are now facing. They will write about this in their journals, including a summary of the content, comparing what they have learned with their own life and what effect does the content of the article have on them? Students will present their information to their classmates in a two minute presentation. Other students must ask two or three questions and express their own opinions on the subject.